Blog Post 11/05/2023 - Homily Cycle A Offered at OLPH

Homily Cycle A 11/05/2023 Offered at OLPH

Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/110523.cfm

Today’s Gospel urges us too be humble, Humble in our thoughts and in our actions.  In 1953, the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize stepped off a train at a Chicago railway station; he was in Chicago to meet reporters.  A tall man with bushy hair and a big mustache stepped off the train, with cameras flashing, and city government officials waiting to greet him.

He thanked them and asked to be excused for a minute and walked through the crowd to the side of an elderly black woman struggling with two large suitcases.   He picked them up, smiled, and escorted her to the bus, helped her get on, & wished her a safe journey.

That man was Albert Schweitzer., the missionary-doctor who helped the poor and sick in Africa.  He turned to the crowd and apologized for keeping them waiting.  [Sermons.com Roy T. Lloyd, Charades and Reality]

We've been called and we’ve been Baptized - to “Live Jesus.” [de Sales]  To walk with those who mourn, to share joy and hope with our brothers & sisters on this earth.  To emulate Pope Francis. Remember when he carried his own suitcase & boarded the bus with others after being chosen as our Holy Father. 

As followers/disciples of Jesus we are called to be servants.  Being a servant might not seem like a great calling, we may think about the servants in Downton Abbey, the servants in the homes of the rich, Sancho Panza in Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote.  They were servants, Jesus calls us to be a servant by loving.  If we look at being a servant as love, we can get a clearer idea of how Jesus’ calls us to live.  I am a servant to my wife: I serve my wife by loving her each day.
As a parent I am called to serve my children: I am called, to love them.  I parent I am called to serve my children by loving & helping them with their children, my grandchildren.
Many of us are servants for our elderly parents: to love them and help them.  Sometimes we are called to serve, to love our neighbor.  We are at our absolute best when Jesus is at the center of our life, when we “Live Jesus” by serving/loving His people.

St. Francis de Sales said, “You learn to speak by speaking, To study by studying, To run by running to work by working, And just so: You learn to love God and Man by Loving.  Begin as a mere apprentice And the very power of love will lead you on To become a Master of the Art."

We are to go into the world and announce the Gospel, by our lives.  Announce what ?

1.     That God Created you.

2.     That God Loves you.

3.     That God Redeemed you.

4.     That God Chose you as a disciple.

We are called to seek “greatness” in God’s Kingdom by our humble service/love to others, by honoring the dignity of everyone as a child of God, by accepting the ups and downs of life with gratitude and optimism.  [Connections, November 2023]

 

Reflect on your answer to God’s call.

 

May God Be Praised.